New Google Chrome release improves in-browser spell chekcer

Does you has bad grammar? Do homonyms give you panes? Google wants too help.

Google has just released Chrome version 26.0.1410.43 to the stable channel, and chief among its list of changes is something that will please the error-prone: the in-browser spell checker sees several prominent additions, most notably the ability to distinguish between homonyms, check grammar, and perform context-sensitive fixes. Additionally, words added to the browser's custom dictionary can now be synced between Chrome installations with Google Sync enabled. For now, these improvements apply only to the Windows and Linux versions of Chrome, as well as Chrome OS. Google is "still working on Mac support" for the features—while OS X has its own system-wide spell checker, it obviously lacks the Chrome-specific features of Google's implementation.

Most of these features will only be available to users who have enabled the "ask Google for suggestions" setting in their browsers, which is done by right-clicking anywhere in a text field and drilling down to the "spell-checker options" menu. These suggestions use Google Search as a backend, which means you'll be sending your misspelled words anonymously to Google for its use just as you do when you use Google Search or the company's other products. Privacy-minded people might want to familiarize themselves with Chrome's privacy policy and settings before enabling the feature.

Chrome 26 also includes a few other modifications in keeping with Chrome's slow-but-steady approach to fixes and feature additions. On Windows PCs with multiple Chrome profiles, users can now create shortcuts to their individual profiles and place them on the desktop. OS X and Linux also benefit from Chrome's asynchronous DNS implementation, which seeks to speed up DNS prefetching, which in turn reduces the amount of time users have to wait for DNS resolution. Before now, asynchronous DNS had been included as an experimental feature, but disabled by default. Finally, the new release fixes several security bugs, all of which are outlined in the release notes.

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Andrew Cunningham
Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites

"It looks like you're composing a rant, would you like assistance understanding the proper use of ad hominems?"

Nice idea, but I'm sure the Big G would get sued for discrimination against Trolls.

On a more serious note, I need to figure out how the custom filters work. I'm tired of second guessing myself when the spellchecker flags a word and I know it's right. Heck, I didn't even know that chrome's spell checker had a custom dictionary feature.

"It looks like you're composing a rant, would you like assistance understanding the proper use of ad hominems?"

Aurich, are you proposing that it helps you construct better arguments, or that it helps you to construct better personal attacks? I know you're comment is funny but I could see it going both ways.

Regardless of your stance on ad hominems, I'd like to propose that we add a feature to prevent users from Godwining a thread. Of course, I suppose that would have to be a server-side solution since it's unlikely those posters would adopt that feature.

... I'd like to propose that we add a feature to prevent users from Goodwining a thread. Of course, I suppose that would have to be a server-side solution since it's unlikely those posters would adopt that feature.

In all seriousness, though, I'm somewhat opposed to letting spell checkers correct all of your mistakes, rather than understanding and correctly utilizing the written (typed) language. If you make it too easy, people will never learn.

Chrome has the worst spell checker of all browsers, bugs where reported and still not fixed to the Chromium project about this for 2 years. 2 year !!!!!

What kind of company which Google resources cannot fix a bug which any other browser does not have?

Chrome is awful if you use multiple language, when you switch from language (it does not have auto detection like Android phones have) all the text is marked red and you need to put the cursor over every single word to make it word, so the you better change language before you type or need to type everything again so Chrome recognizes the words.

This is just plain awful for people that write in more than one language. I can´t wait for Opera webkit version and I will move for good out of Chrome. I have no faith in Google anymore because it seems there developers are idiots or just plain lazy.

... I'd like to propose that we add a feature to prevent users from Goodwining a thread. Of course, I suppose that would have to be a server-side solution since it's unlikely those posters would adopt that feature.

You know who else would propose such a feature? HITLER!!!!1!

I was going to be a grammar/spelling Nazi and point out that it's Godwin not Goodwin, but you beat me to the punch(line).

"It looks like you're composing a rant, would you like assistance understanding the proper use of ad hominems?"

Aurich, are you proposing that it helps you construct better arguments, or that it helps you to construct better personal attacks? I know you're comment is funny but I could see it going both ways.

I was mostly joking, but the grain of truth in the jest was that people have a lot of trouble understanding what an ad hominem is. It's been part of our posting guidelines from the very beginning, so I've done my fair share of explaining and correcting people misusing the concept over the years.

At the same time, this is probably going to be hugely useful to non native English speakers who are trying to compose English text within Chrome, as homonyms are often one of the more challenging word selections for non native speakers.

I can already see a few people in this comments thread who could really use this latest feature.

Like this snippet:

twdog wrote:

...and it's baffling because Google is search is awesome for spell checking...

I couldn't cut this down, I seriously don't know if he's trolling, but this whole comment is just too much when it comes to grammar and spelling:

nibb wrote:

Chrome has the worst spell checker of all browsers, bugs where reported and still not fixed to the Chromium project about this for 2 years. 2 year !!!!!

What kind of company which Google resources cannot fix a bug which any other browser does not have?

Chrome is awful if you use multiple language, when you switch from language (it does not have auto detection like Android phones have) all the text is marked red and you need to put the cursor over every single word to make it word, so the you better change language before you type or need to type everything again so Chrome recognizes the words.

This is just plain awful for people that write in more than one language. I can´t wait for Opera webkit version and I will move for good out of Chrome. I have no faith in Google anymore because it seems there developers are idiots or just plain lazy.

So when Microsoft did this months ago with IE10 it got nary a mention from Ars, but if Google does it, then it's headline news?

It would have got a mention. But you do have a point - the IE10 spellchecker (and the Windows 8 system spellchecker) is taken from Microsoft Word. Now whilst only some of the auto-correction and grammar checking present in Word is exposed to the user in IE (or system edit controls in Windows 8), it's pretty comparable to what Chrome is doing here.

Chrome's spellchecker is unbelievably awful, and it's baffling because Google is search is awesome for spell checking, and can often get managed words right that MS Word can't.

That is somewhat amusing, isn't it?

I often spell the same works incorrectly no matter how many times I try to fix the problem - maneuver and efficiency are my two main culprits (try writing about aerodynamics or energy policy without them!) - and Safari refuses to understand the proper solution to the mistake no matter how many times I tell it.

Instead I simply paste my wrong version into Google, and hey-presto, the right one immediately appears.

It seems like an obvious upgrade for all of these systems, a background thread that captures the "did you mean" text.

Still only one language at a time? For us non-english speaker it would surely make it easier if you could have spell check activated for both English and our native language. My phone does it brilliantly with swiftkey keyboard.